By the year 2052, Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
in Florida may have landing strips for rocket planes going to the International
Space Station, rockets launching every 36 hours, hotels near the Visitor
Complex and even space tourists flying out of Brevard County, reports
Florida Today.

Space officials recently unveiled their land-use plan for Florida's spaceport,
which encompasses the space center and the Air Force Station, for the
next 50 years.

When the economy boomed in the late 1990s, airlines couldn't sink enough
money into efficiency-producing information-technology initiatives funded
by business travelers' hefty fares. But as Business Week Daily Edition
reported, IT spending was cut to the bone after air travel declined following
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

With the airline industry's financial picture looking grim, many carriers
are rushing to outsource their remaining IT functions, according to consultants
and industry experts. And in an industry spending from $8 billion to $10
billion on IT annually, that should mean big contracts for outsourcers
such as IBM, Accenture, Unisys, and Electronic Data Systems.

The first of a powerful new breed of unmanned American rockets roared
into space Aug. 21 with the launch of Lockheed Martin's Atlas V.

According to Washington Post reports, the Hot Bird 6 communications
satellite, built by Alcatel Space and owned by Paris-based Eutelsat, was
safely ejected into its planned preliminary orbit 31 minutes after liftoff.
Lockheed Martin is relying on the successful debut of the Atlas V to bolster
its position in the fiercely competitive launch marketplace.

Boeing is competing with the Delta IV, which is scheduled to conduct
its first launch in October. Boeing has won most of the near-term military
contracts, with 22 firm orders versus seven for the Atlas V.

The U.S. Air Force paid Lockheed Martin and Boeing more than $500 million
each to design and build state-of-the-art rockets to provide assured access
to space for high-priority military spy satellites and other large payloads.
Each company added more than $1 billion of their own money to develop
the new models, also known as evolved expendable launch vehicles and to
build the modern launch pads, control facilities and support infrastructure
needed to streamline and consolidate launch processing.

IN BRIEF

Wanted: great minds for missile defense

In January, reports Aviation Week and Space Technology,
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld set four top missile defense
priorities, calling for an integrated multiservice system to be developed
by the newly titled Missile Defense Agency.

The agency's biggest hurdle isn't a technical one: MDA is short of qualified
engineers and scientists. An additional 300 engineers and scientists need
to be hired this year to meet the current requirement. "[Rumsfeld] said
assign the best and brightest people to this work," Christopher Taylor,
MDA spokesman, told Aviation Week and Space Technology.
"We are getting our message out to audiences beyond the beltway, so we
can attract engineers and scientists from the uniformed and civilian services,
from industry and academia. The primary overall challenge is recruiting
and retaining the best and brightest who think out of the box."

Capability is the key word, requiring that military strategists, scientists
and engineers thoroughly and carefully examine potential threats first.

U.S. may get another try at Czech fighters

The United States may get another opportunity to sell fighter aircraft
to the Czech Republic after the Czech government agreed to postpone its
decision on replacing its MiG-21 fleet until after a November NATO summit
meeting. According to Aerospace Daily, the Czech government has
said that after paying bills to recover from recent devastating floods,
it will no longer be able to afford to buy 24 Jas-39 Gripen fighters from
BAE Systems/Saab at a cost of about $2 billion.

U.S. hopes were raised by foreign minister Cyril Svoboda, who told Czech
ambassadors at a meeting in Prague that the post-flood situation had "opened
room for considering the purchase of U.S. planes," although he did not
elaborate on his comments.

According to Aerospace Daily, Czech defense minister Jaroslav
Tvrdik said at a press conference that the flooding would have such a
huge economic impact on the country that he would not propose the purchase
of 24 Gripens. Other options would be considered, including purchasing
fewer Gripens or buying older aircraft, he said.

The Czech Republic is under pressure to resolve the issue of air protection
fairly quickly, since its current fleet of MiG-21s will reach the end
of its service lifespan in 2004.